The National Labor Relations Board has filed a labor practices complaint against Valley and Deaconess hospitals as contentious negotiations remain stalled four months after a one-day strike over staffing levels and scheduling protocols, union leaders announced today.

The NLRB complaint (read here) alleges the hospitals, managed by Community Health Systems, Inc., discouraged union membership by retaliating against striking workers and refused to bargain in good faith with the SEIU Healthcare 1199NW union.

"These charges add even more strength and volume to our calls for the hospitals to stop fighting us and start working with us to provide better patient care," Diane Gross, a Deaconess health unit coordinator, says in a news release.

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In what may be the city's largest ever health care strike, hundreds of union nurses, technicians and hospital support workers gathered outside Valley Hospital and Deaconess Medical Center early this morning for a 24-hour strike.